Around this time of the year, a lot of people are sick and for just about everyone, it’s clear that their immune system could be strengthened. But what if you’re not sick or don’t ever get sick? Does that mean that your immune system is functioning optimally? What are some other signs that your immune system could use a boost, or rebalance? And how exactly can you support your immune system?

10 Signs You Need to Boost Your Immune System

1. I Always have a Cold

People often tell me that they always have a cold, despite taking echinacea drops or another store bought immune booster every winter. Your immune system might be weakened or distracted by something else in the body, inflammation for example. For long-term, permanent results, it’s important to not only boost the immune system but to address the root cause of the immune deficiency. Optimal functioning of your immune system relies on healthy hormones, a healthy gut and an overall healthy lifestyle.

2. I Never Get Sick

I often hear patients tell me that they don’t remember the last time that they were sick, and they say so proudly. But is that a good thing? This can often mean that the person’s immune system is so weak or distracted that it is completely unresponsive. In this case, your immune system needs to be woken up!

There is an underlying imbalance of good-bad bacteria or dysbiosis in each of the infectionsmentioned above. Bacteria play a key part in keeping intruders out of your body by physically occupying space in your body so that bad bacteria cannot establish themselves and multiply. When you have an imbalance of good-bad bacteria, this means that your immune system’s barricade to the outside world is not strong enough. Populating your good bacteria means strengthening your immune system.

4. I have a chronic skin issue – eczema.

A chronic skin issue like eczema can often be treated with dietary interventions.2 Often your immune system mistakenly identifies a food as being foreign, tagging it with an antibody and forming an antibody-antigen complex. When these form in abundance, they deposit in your joints, and your skin – leading to eczema.2 Conditions like eczema require modulating your immune system to only identify and tag true intruders and not foods that we eat on a daily basis.2

5. I have seasonal allergies.

Seasonal allergies are a sign that your immune system is overly sensitive to the pollen in the air grass or to certain trees. This is contrary to many of the other signs that you need to boost your immune system, where your body is actually deficient. Just like having a chronic skin issue – your immune system needs to be retrained.

6. I’m always under a lot of stress.

Chronic stress suppresses your immune system, specifically your T-cells which recruit cells to an infection and help to ensure that the magnitude of an immune response is adequate.Cortisol is also anti-inflammatory. Anti-inflammatory interventions are often a good thing when they’re being to used to treat conditions where there is chronic inflammation. When cortisol levels are too high, such is the case in hypercortisolism, the immune system simply shuts down and the person becomes susceptible to a wide variety of infections.1

There is a common perception that the only way to treat an autoimmune condition is tosuppress the body’s immune response, creating a host of potential adverse effects.Autoimmune conditions are often due to an increase or decrease in activity in one cell type or messenger. Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, for example, is often described as being Th1 dominant, meaning that there are too many natural killer and T-cells. Lupus on the other hand, is said to be Th2 dominant, meaning that it’s due to elevated B-cell antibodies. Rebalancing the immune system to modulate the number of natural killer, T-cells and B-cell antibodies can often help ease autoimmune symptoms.

8. I have a chronic inflammatory condition such as Diabetes or atherosclerosis.

In chronic inflammatory conditions such as Diabetes, atherosclerosis or Metabolic Syndrome, immune cells must repair damaged tissue rather than fight infections.2 To further complicate things, many of these conditions are associated with an increased risk of obesity. Fat cells produce chemical signals that promote chronic inflammation; therefore, the more fat cells you have, the more inflamed you’re going to be.5 Decreasing inflammation, weight loss and repairing tissue are at the crux of any treatment protocol for these chronic health conditions.

9. My neck always feels swollen.

You have a sore throat, you might notice a few bumps around your neck, under your chin –those are swollen lymph nodes. When your throat is sore, it’s normal to have swollen lymph nodes. It means that your body is working properly and fighting off an intruder. When your lymph nodes are always swollen, it means that your immune system is constantly fighting something and being tired out.

10. You have chronic gut issues – bloating, flatulence etc

Digestive issues such as bloating and flatulence are signs of dysbiosis or an imbalance of goodbad bacteria. This imbalance can lead to a number of downstream effects – eventuallycompromising the integrity your gut lining, your largest internal barrier or barricade to theoutside world. This increases your susceptibility to foreign microorganisms you are exposed to everyday in your foods.An overabundance of bad bacteria also produces harmful chemicals that damage your gutlining, prompting your immune system to recruit even more immune cells to the area. Over a long period of time, this chronic inflammation causes leaky gut, allowing just about everything to cross the gut lining.This distracts your immune system and makes your body more susceptible to various infections.

The Bottom Line

A healthy immune system means minimizing distractions for your immune system so that it can focus on its main job – dealing with intruders. This means eating right, and making positive lifestyle changes to decrease chronic inflammation and prevent chronic health conditions. It means supporting your immune system using diet, supplements, and herbs.How Can I Support my Immune System?A healthy immune system requires a healthy mind and body. This means eating a nutrient-rich diet, exercising, stress management and other positive lifestyle choices.When you do have an imbalanced immune system, it’s important to choose interventions that address the true underlying cause of your immune deficiency. These interventions can either boost or rebalance your immune system.Boosting your immune system refers to elevating the activity of all your immune cells which is great if your immune system is generally weak. Unfortunately, this strategy doesn’t work for everyone. In the case of several autoimmune conditions such as Hashimoto’s Thyroidits, Asthma and Type I Diabetes, activity of only one cell type is affected. Increasing activity of all your immune cells will not address this underlying imbalance. It’s important to choose treatments that address the true underlying cause of your immune deficiency.Want a faster, bigger immune boost? Intravenous (IV) injections are cocktails of variousminerals and vitamins that support the immune system and can make all the difference forsome. Intravenous injections are especially advantageous for those who experience chronic gut issues and may not be absorbing nutrients from their diet. Intravenous injections go straight into your bloodstream to where the nutrients are needed, bypassing the gut.

For many women, pregnancy can be a very uncomfortable experience. First, there are the initial hormonal changes and morning sickness; the feeling of being on an emotional roller-coaster for no good reason whatsoever and the unusual food cravings at all hours of the day (such as early, early morning Jack-in-the-Box taco runs for those husbands keeping track).

Next come the physical changes. As the baby develops and grows inside the womb, so does the momma’s belly. This expansion of the belly is an unavoidable change, part of the territory that comes with growing a baby. But oftentimes, this territory is accompanied by an alteration in spinal and pelvic alignment. This structural alteration, or misalignment, is often very uncomfortable and even painful as the pregnancy progresses.

One of the hormones that runs wild through a pregnant momma’s body is relaxin. Relaxin helps ligaments loosen up, especially those in the pelvic area, to accomodate the expansion of the growing baby and uterus. However, relaxin can be a double-edged sword. While it helps those bones shift in order to make way for the baby, the ligament laxity can make those pelvic bones very unstable in their position, allowing them to misalign in a very painful way. Couple this with the fact that a pregnant woman’s lumbar spinal curvature can increase as the size and weight of the belly increase (a temporary, forced hyperlordosis so as to speak), and you have the recipe for a very painful, very unhappy pregnancy. Letting go of fears surrounding labor are hard to do when you are pregnant, in pain, and unhappy about it.

In Chiropractic, the two most important parts of the spine to pay attention to, more than any other areas, are the very top and very bottom of the spine. At the top is the atlas, or C1 vertebra. Proper position of this vertebra is important because of its close proximity to the brain stem, as well as its ability to create a domino effect of spinal misalignment from the top all the way down to the bottom where the pelvis and sacrum are. Proper alignment of the atlas is paramount for a healthy, properly aligned spine.

At the bottom of the spine is the pelvis and sacrum. The pelvis consists of six bones, three on each side: the ilium on the front, back, and side, the pubis in the lower front, and the ischium on the bottom.

Along with the sacrum and the elaborate network of ligaments, tendons, muscles, and nerves attached and intertwined within this area, one can start to imagine the complications that can arise for a pregnant woman with an improperly aligned pelvis, one of those being a baby in a breech position late in the pregnancy.

(As a side note, having a baby in a breech position does not necessarily mean you are doomed to have an inevitable c-section, but a baby with its head down will make life a lot easier for the momma and the baby during labor.)

Because of the elaborate setup of the pelvis and sacrum, they move as one most of the time. When one ilium has rocked back into a posterior misalignment, the opposite side is, by default, rocked forward. This can cause the sacrum to tilt posterior one way or the other, often causing pain and/or tightness in the opposite leg. Because of all this tilting and torquing of the pelvic bones, the birth canal will narrow, possibly complicating the baby’s ability to birth naturally.

Any combination of misalignments of these bones will contribute to troublesome, or even severe, lower back pain for a pregnant woman, and set the stage for a painful, long labor full of interventions that may result in an eventual c-section, a major surgery few women look forward to unless absolutely necessary.

Proper chiropractic care, in and of itself, is very beneficial for the pregnant mother. A properly aligned pelvis and sacrum will do wonders in avoiding any of the unfavorable scenarios previously mentioned. Properly aligned pelvic bones help the pelvic muscles stay loose, allowing the network of nerves within the pelvic area to transmit important messages from the nervous system to their intended destinations without interference.

The Webster In-Utero Constraint Technique, or simply the Webster Technique, takes it one step further. Dr. Larry Webster developed a chiropractic technique that balances the pelvis properly, while also reducing the stress to the ligaments that support the uterus, more specifically the round ligaments. Dr. Webster developed this technique after watching his own daughter suffer through a long, painful labor with a baby in the breech position.

The round ligaments act to hold the uterus in suspension within the abdomen. However, as the pregnancy goes on, these round ligaments can become thin and tight like a rubber band pulled to tension, causing sharp, spastic pains and restricting the space in which the baby has to maneuver within the womb. Restriction of this movement often causes a baby to stay in a breech position beyond 37 weeks. This can be a very disconcerting feeling to many women, as we know from firsthand experience. Once the pelvis and sacrum are properly aligned, the Webster Technique focuses on relieving the tightness in the round ligaments. This allows the baby to shift comfortably and freely within the womb so that he or she may get into proper position for his or her big journey to the outside world.

For more information on the Webster Technique, click here. If you are pregnant, the time to get under chiropractic care is yesterday. Chiropractic, including the Webster Technique, will stack the cards in favor of you and your growing baby.

And with all the fears the mainstream media, hospitals, AMA, and insurance companies have instilled in our society about childbirth, you need a stacked deck to stare down those fears with full faith and confidence in yourself, your body, and your baby.

In today’s modern times, we are exposed to a wide range of health information. Almost daily, we are bombarded with the news, print media and stories on the web about how to take care of ourselves. Some talk about the latest diet, some the latest nutritional supplement and still others preach about trendy healthy habits.

Perhaps the most universal concept that everyone seems to embrace is.................